Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

Alright boys (and maybe girls, I don't know the gender ratio around here these days). I need a really healthy sized RPG for my Xbox. I've been out of the loop on these as of late, I've been playing some sports games and a ton of Happy Wars. I'm open to the style of RPG, but my favorite is turn based, old school feel. I also enjoy open world, I've liked the Bethesda games I have played. I've played Skyrim, Oblivion, New Vegas, and Mass Effect, but I didn't beat New Vegas or Mass Effect as they didn't really grip me.

Recommend me something I may have missed. I don't do a lot of reading about games anymore, I'm more of a "stand at the glass at Walmart and decide" kind of guy anymore. Would greatly appreciate some suggestions!_________________arson and birthday cake

Star Ocean: the Last Hope - It's ok 6/10. I got into the gameplay, it's your classic JRPG levelling, buy-a-new-weapon-at-latest-city game. Fairly old school. Your protagonist's name is "Edge Maverick"...enough said. NOTE: if you come across a character called Welch, mute your TV immediately. The dialogue is so bad it's funny.

Now, about the Dragon Age games, are they linear? I'm a big time story fiend when it comes to RPGs, and I want to make sure I go in order and don't ruin the story for myself (if they're linear)._________________arson and birthday cake

The format of the Dragon Age games is similar to Baldur's Gate, in that instead of one continuous environment à la Skyrim it's a bunch of interconnected areas. Unlike Baldur's Gate however, it is composed of fewer, but much larger areas, each broken into smaller zones. In Origins, each large area has a link to the main story, but you can go to any area in any order you want, so the game is open to explore without losing the story (which is excellent).

Dragon Age 2 however has many problems. It has uninteresting characters, an uninteresting story, and so many side quests you will completely forget what your main mission was in the first place. It is more action oriented tho, as opposed to the tactical DA: Origins, so if that's your thing you might still like it. Since you're a story man however, I'd say play Origins ASAP abs steer clear of 2.